Kansas shooting suspect has history of hate for Jews

New York Times

Updated 10:54 pm, Monday, April 14, 2014

Photo: Tammy Ljungblad, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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People gather to mourn the victims of the shootings at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Overland Park, Kan. Three people were fatally shot near two Jewish facilities in the Kansas City suburb.

People gather to mourn the victims of the shootings at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Overland Park, Kan. Three people were fatally shot near two Jewish facilities in the Kansas City suburb.

Photo: Tammy Ljungblad, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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Rachel Trout, 16, a student at Blue Valley High School, received a hug from a friend after addressing the crowd gathered to mourn the victims of the shooting at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom during a vigil at St. Thomas The Apostle Episcopal Church in Overland Park, Kan., Sunday, April 13, 2014. Trout was inside the Jewish Community Center Sunday when shots rang out. (Tammy Ljungblad/Kansas City Star/MCT) less

Rachel Trout, 16, a student at Blue Valley High School, received a hug from a friend after addressing the crowd gathered to mourn the victims of the shooting at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom ... more

Photo: Tammy Ljungblad, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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Mindy Corporan, right, mother of murder victim Reat Underwood, who was killed in a shoot at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kan., speaks during a vigil held to mourn the victims at St. Thomas The Apostle Episcopal Church in Overland Park, Sunday, April 13, 2014. (Tammy Ljungblad/Kansas City Star/MCT) less

Mindy Corporan, right, mother of murder victim Reat Underwood, who was killed in a shoot at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kan., speaks during a vigil held to mourn the victims at St. Thomas The ... more

Photo: Tammy Ljungblad, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Kansas shooting suspect has history of hate for Jews

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Overland Park, Kan. -- After the Sunday afternoon mayhem, the handcuffed suspect was led to a police car, his beard salt and pepper, his T-shirt a striking white. He looked like who he was, in part: a retiree who was said to have just spent part of his weekend at a casino. Then, from the back seat, he shouted a hoary phrase tinged with Southern inflection: "Heil Hitler!"

Once again, Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, for decades one of the country's more prominent white supremacists, known for his particular antipathy toward Jews, had announced himself. This time, though, he had been arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing three people outside two Jewish community facilities, on the day before Passover.

The victims were William Corporon, 69, a physician; his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Underwood; and Terri LaManno, 53. None of them was Jewish.

The news of Miller's arrest almost, but not quite, surprised Heidi Beirich at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. Beirich has had several telephone conversations with Miller, whom she described as both congenial and so virulent in his anti-Semitism that his hatred took her aback.

"On the one hand, I'm a little surprised," Beirich said. "He has emphysema, spent most of his time posting nasty things on a website, and hadn't done anything in years. On the other hand, how can you be surprised when a guy whose spent his life saying the Jews should be killed decides to go kill Jews?"

Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies announced on Monday that they were pursuing the shootings as a hate crime.

"We believe that his motivation was to attack a Jewish facility," said police Chief John Douglass.

A scheduled court appearance for Miller, who also goes by Frazier Glenn Cross, was postponed, leaving unanswered for another day the question of why. But Miller's true nature has never been in doubt.

His rudimentary website, for example, includes photographs of Ku Klux Klan rallies and a position paper on the need to do "whatever is necessary" to break the Jewish control of the media.

After recommending that people get "Jew-wise," Miller encourages visitors to have a nice day.

He joined the Army as a teenager in March 1959. According to Miller and the Southern Poverty Law Center, he served two tours in Vietnam, and for 13 years, was a Green Beret. But he found his calling, he later said, when his father gave him a copy of a racist, anti-Semitic newsletter called the Thunderbolt.

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